by Emmy Ellis
The backs of my eyes stung, and I blinked loads of times to try to stop tears from coming out. I swallowed. Dad smiled at me, and his eyes were wet again, but he stared at me as if he’d forgotten what I looked like and needed a refresher. It was a bit creepy. I didn’t know what to do, so I stared down at his hand in mine, and his had veins sticking out.
His pillow crackled, so I glanced up to find him staring at Mags, the same way he’d stared at me, and Mags, she had that tissue under her nose and hiccoughed like I did when she walloped me in one of her moods. Part of me got angry, knowing she was acting, letting him think she gave a shit when she’d told Scott she didn’t.
Dad spoke, and I jumped. His voice was raspy. Did he need a drink of water or Coke?
Dad liked Coke.
“Mags. Look after Wayne, eh?”
Mags nodded, crying some more, and my throat hurt again because Dad breathed oddly, and his eyes rolled about like my mate Peter Brand’s did when he used to muck about saying he could go boss-eyed.
“Mags!” Dad said, as though he was being strangled. “Promise?”
Mags nodded and held Dad’s other hand, and I didn’t know who to look at because I remember thinking I’d see Mags again—unfortunately—and didn’t reckon I’d see Dad after we left that hospital. All I could see in my head was the chocolate digestives I wanted to eat at his new place and red Coke labels and his shelf in the shed at home with the metal soldiers on it that his dad, Grampy Richards, used to let me play with before he died.
A nurse poked her head round the curtain. Her eyes widened, and her mouth dropped open, but she shut it and flung the curtains aside then turned to Dad again, who was having this kind of fit on the bed, and he held my hand so tightly it hurt. I didn’t want to let go, but at the same time I did. I had to let it go in the end because the nurse moved me by the shoulders to the bottom of the bed, and Mags got up, too.
I stood and stared. Dad had gone limp. I was scared but didn’t want to let Mags see it; she’d take the piss out of me later on with Scott. She cried loudly into her snotty tissue, and the nurse pressed Dad’s wrist and studied the little upside-down clock hanging on the front of her dress.
Dad’s teeth stuck out past his thin lips, and my heart beat so fast. Mags squeezed my shoulder really hard, and she cried so loudly, so theatrically, that the other people in the ward gawped at us, but I didn’t care about that. Dad’s metal soldiers were in my head again, and I cried, and I didn’t care, I didn’t care.
“I’m sorry,” the nurse said. “He requested DNR.”
“DNR?” Mags said.
“Do not resuscitate.”
She took Mags to the desk, and they talked for a while, so I sat on a plastic orange chair like we had in the school canteen and stared down at my scruffy trainers.
Dad had bought those for me.
Mags tapped me hard on the shoulder with her pointed fingernail. “Come on, kid. Got to go.”
“Are we going home?”
She brought her face close to mine. “Where else d’you think we’d fucking go, eh?”
So home we went, and I made my way to the shed, got the metal soldiers, and curled up in Dad’s chair with my head on his stripy pillow.
Mags burst in, shouting, “Do you want to live in here or what, Wayne?”
I nodded and cried.
“Good. Fucking stay out here then.” Mags stormed back into the house.
I followed her.
“Wayne?”
“Yes?”
She looked at me spitefully, her eyes narrowed, mouth pursed. “D’you want a chocolate biscuit?” She smirked.
I bowed my head. Crumbs and dirt littered the floor. “Yes, please.” I wanted to ask for a Coke, too, but my voice wouldn’t work after that.
“Well,” she said. “You can’t bloody have one.”
My cheeks were wet now. She was crying in the larder, and I was crying in here.
She’ll have to wait.
* * * *
I hated it when I got like this. Depression claimed me like a devil swathed in dense cloaks. It waited, biding its time until a chink appeared and it slipped on in. Devoured me. Like they do.
I wanted a change and I made it happen. Yet it wasn’t enough.
Everything was the same yet different. Things had happened in my life that would probably get anyone down.
Calm. Get calm, let the images pass. Make them stop and beat them, fight them. Get. Them. The. Fuck. Away.
Think about something else.
Christmas was coming. People were putting up their trees and decorating, houses so many shining beacons, inviting me to look through their windows, to take a peek into the lives of those who live there. I smelled the snow in the air, and red-cheeked children ran, excited about the season to be jolly.
What I wouldn’t give to feel like them, to have a family. A normal life.
My tree would go up; my house would be a beacon. I’d decorate the tree and maybe get her to help me. She’d like that, I reckoned.
And my face would hold a silicone smile until I’d banished the darkness within. I’d settle down with Harmony and have a couple of kids, treat them properly, give them a good life.
And she was tapping now, quietly, on the door of the larder. I got up, went into the kitchen. Her face filled the plastic square, bruises still livid, scalp a mess.
Christ, what have I done to her? Why did I do that?
I could make it better, get her to forgive me, love me, stay here, and have everything work out.
She’d love me. Care for me. Hurt when I hurt, laugh when I laughed.
“You going to behave if I let you out?”
She nodded and hung her head.
I released the bolt and waited for her to shove the door at me or try to make a run for it, but she didn’t. She stayed in place, waited for me to open the door, and I led her to the stool by the breakfast bar and prepared her some Coco Pops.
She ate steadily.
“You want to use the toilet now? Get freshened up?”
“Please.”
She didn’t look at me when she said it, but that was fine. It would come.
Once we got settled in the bathroom, I let her use the spare toothbrush. She washed her tender face with a flannel.
Harmony walked to the mirror. She closed her eyes tightly; the slits of them seemed to disappear in the oedema, leaving just a nose and mouth in her blueberry face. Ribena berry, that’s what she reminded me of.
Ribena.
I smiled at Harmony. “You want a drink? Some Ribena, maybe?”
She smiled and nodded.
“Come on, then. Come with me.”
Chapter Four
Time to explain a few things.
We were sitting opposite one another in the kitchen. I stared at her cheek with its four circular scabs from the fork tines, the run of blood from each hole gone now that she’d washed herself up a bit. Her nose wasn’t bleeding anymore.
“Why do you think I’ve taken you, brought you here?”
She shrugged, looked down at the breakfast bar, and turned her beaker of Ribena round and round.
“Don’t you want to know?”
If she lied to me, I’d know it.
She nodded. Whispered, “I s’pose.”
“Well, I had to do it. Had to take you and bring you here.”
She appeared confused, like she just didn’t get it. I had to be careful how much I said. If they caught me out, got wind of what I wanted to say, they’d stop me. So I took a deep breath and blurted it out.
“I wanted to bring you here and have you do what you’re told, just to prove them wrong, and then I’d let you go again. I need to show them that someone will want to be with me, love me, that there must be women out in the world who are kind. Do you know what I’m saying?”
She frowned and winced, nodded again, though I’d swear she still looked unsure. So I plodded on, throwing caution to the wind and said, “I want them to go away. Lea
ve me alone, and to do that, I had to take you. And if you don’t do what you’re told, it makes me hurt you. Do you understand now?”
She probably thought that they and them were people I worked for or something, a gang or sorts. If that was what she wanted to think, shit, I’d let her think it. It’d get me off the hook with her anyway. I’d stand more chance of her liking me if I led her to believe that.
“Plus…” My cheeks grew hot. “Plus, I kind of wanted you to like me.”
She nodded yet again. I supposed she didn’t really know what to say to a bloke who was a raving lunatic.
Yet, she said, “I did like you.” She glanced at me and added quickly, “Do like you. Even though you hurt me.” That last sentence was a whisper.
“You do?”
“Yeah.”
She smiled, and a weight lifted from me, like a massive sack of potatoes had been on my back and someone had just taken it away.
I sensed she wanted to ask me something, but didn’t dare, so I said, “What? What do you want to know?”
She fiddled with her beaker again and met my gaze. “If you didn’t hurt me and keep me locked up…” She swallowed, bunched up her eyes, a lone tear escaping. “I wouldn’t even want to go, to leave. I’d stay here.”
“What?” I had to find out what she meant. I’d held them off, could feel them poking at the invisible screen I’d put up between us, jostling to get through and get hold of me, berate me for letting my nice side come through.
“Well. My life at home, it’s shit, so I could stay here, no problem.”
“You could?”
“I could. My mum ignores me most of the time. When she’s not doing that, she’s hitting me. She’ll be relieved I’m gone.”
She drank her Ribena, and I stood to get her a refill. We spoke no more for a while, and I made us some toast. We ate, sharing our space but not our thoughts.
Then I said, “I can’t let you sleep in the house, though. You must understand, I’d have to…you’d have to sleep in the larder still.”
“That’s cool. Whatever. Just don’t hurt me anymore. Please.”
I bristled. She’d said the word don’t. Like she was telling me what to do, like she had the right.
They had found the gateway again.
My fist connected with Harmony’s chin, and her head snapped backwards. She fell off the stool, whacking her coccyx on the floor, followed by the dull thud of her head meeting the linoleum.
The blood wasn’t apparent at first. It didn’t gush out like it did in the movies, but pooled slowly, the circle growing steadily, having dripped from her left ear and onto the lino.
She was still awake, though stunned. With her eyes wide, she just rested there.
Don’t. Don’t. Don’t.
Why did they say that word? Why did she do that? Shit! Shit! Fucking piss!
I hauled her up and marched her to the larder, grabbing a tea towel on my way past the table. I threw it at her before I closed the door, anger growing, and I fought to control it and force it to go away.
“Why are you like this?” she wailed, her voice full of desperation.
She’d asked me the same question as I had asked them.
I looked at her and said, “I don’t know. I don’t fucking know. It’s them! Them!”
Puzzled. She looked so puzzled.
“But when I find out, I’ll let you know, I promise.”
I left the room, stumbled up the stairs, and flung myself onto my bed. “Why? Why are you making me do this shit?”
All I heard in reply was laughter.
* * * *
I didn’t go into the kitchen much for a while. I popped in to get drinks or microwave a slice of pizza, make a quick sandwich, or to throw my takeaway cartons in the bin. I bought a bottle of water for her, opened the door a crack, and pushed it in. She’d be okay if she drank water.
On the way to work, I stopped at the coffee shop. I arrived there at eight a.m., breathed in the aroma of the pastries and the espressos, and then left at eight-forty in time to get to the office. Sitting at my desk, I endured Gary’s ribald jokes while ploughing through my files with an almost insane vigour.
Gary came in and plonked down in the seat on the other side of my desk, put his right foot on the opposite knee, and swung the chair around slightly.
“Wayne, dude. What’s up?”
Could he tell what I’d done? Did he know? Did they tell him?
“Up? Nothing, Gary. Why?”
“Well, for the past couple of days, I’ve noticed you’re not yourself. Are you ill?”
“Ill? Me? You know I don’t get ill. Don’t do the whole sicky thing.”
I smiled. He smiled.
“You’re sick for something, though, aren’t you, buddy?”
“I’m not sick for anything, mate. Honestly.”
“Yes, you are.” He sounded like one of those creepy uncles who knew best, the ones who tried to get things out of you, teased you until you confessed.
I wasn’t in the mood for it, really, but with Gary, you just had to play along.
I shuffled some papers, aligned each page edge with the next, tapped the bottom of the stack on the desk.
“You got a bird then, is that it? Got some secret little woman stashed away? Didn’t want to tell us in case we told Jess—she fancies you something chronic. Gotcha. You’ve got a woman. Forget all about Jess, did we? Naughty, naughty.”
“Jess? I didn’t even…”
“I know! I’m messing, Wayne. Lighten up, man.”
His silly little laugh tinkered under my skull.
Spider legs, those damn spider legs.
“So, who is she then?”
“Oh, just some bird I met last week. Early days yet, you know how it is with a new one.”
“Oh, I know. Anyway, now I’ve got to the bottom of this, how about you finish up those files today? You can take the rest of the week off, yeah? Spend some time with your new woman.”
“Are you sure? That’d be, well…great.”
Gary left the room and yelled, “Wayne’s got his end away. He’s got himself a bird. Hey, Jess, Kleenex for you, love. Need to mop up the tears, yeah?”
The outer office erupted with whistles.
My boss really was a dick.
* * * *
The air seemed different. I stood in the hallway and sniffed, searching out what was wrong. Panic took hold, and I rushed to the kitchen to find the larder door wide open. I felt sick—sick to my stomach that she had fucking got out and had probably run away. Gone home and told her mum and the police where I lived, what I’d done.
My guts went over, and with heart hammering, I didn’t know what to think. Splintered wood littered the floor; the door lock was busted. She’d had the strength to kick it open? Fucking hell.
“What are you doing?”
I jumped at the sound of her voice and turned to look behind me. She stood in the kitchen doorway, in a different set of my jogging bottoms and a clean T-shirt. She’d had a bath again, and because I hadn’t seen her in a couple of days, her face had healed some, the bruises a lighter shade. The fork scabs were almost gone.
“I’m uh…uh…”
I didn’t know what to say to her. She’d caught me off guard, seen me worrying, fretting.
“I said I’d stay if you let me out.”
Yeah, she’d said that, but to believe she would was another thing. She wandered off to the living room, and I stood with my mouth wide open, trying to take it all in. She’d stayed. She’d got out of the larder and stayed.
Shit.
I followed her, and she nestled on the sofa, can of Coke in her hand, staring into space.
“Um…” I cleared my throat. ‘Um…how come you didn’t…go?’
I felt small. Like a kid.
“I already told you I’d like to stay.”
I sat on the other end of the sofa and watched her face for any signs that she didn’t want me there, that she was playing, toying
with me. She didn’t flinch, didn’t even twitch except to raise the Coke can to her lips to take a long sip. Finally, she went to move her hair from her eyes, but self-consciously laid her palm on her leg, realising there was no hair to move.
I didn’t know what to do or what to say, so I remained silent, waiting for her to speak.
“My dad, when he left us, I felt like shit, yeah? Like, he’d fucked off with this woman, sent divorce papers to my mum, and started this new life with someone else. And I couldn’t help but think: Shit, I wish I could do that.”
She sniffed, tenderly rubbed at her nose, and blinked a little. I sensed her struggling and knew how it felt, and with the absence of them, I almost felt normal again, like I’d found someone who understood how it hurt to be left by your father. Just as quickly, I told myself off. Stupid. It was stupid to be thinking like that—damn dangerous, too.
“Anyway.” She continued to stare at nothing. “I got left behind with this woman I’ve called Mum all my life. A woman who didn’t give two shits about me, just about her makeup and her circle of friends, her shopping trips. Half the time she didn’t even know I was around.”
Christ.
“So, you don’t need to worry, because I know she hasn’t even called the police about me. Really. She’ll be glad I’m gone. And I don’t want to go back. I would rather stay here. Fucked up as you are, you’re still a better option.”
She laughed to herself, and I found my voice.
“Look, I’m sorry for what I did. I’m feeling weird right now, you know? Like I’ve been through some kind of personality change. I suppose I have, really. See, I’m fucked up. I know that, I just…”
“I know. It doesn’t matter. Hey, you can lock me in the house when you go wherever it is you go, and I’ll still be here when you get back. I swear. Just please, don’t put me in that cupboard again.”
She sighed, and fuck me, I believed her, I really did. She’d said don’t and it hadn’t rankled or wound me up.
